Talking of Doherty, it seems that we shouldn't be talking about his former band the Libertines in the past tense anymore. Despite a consensus before Christmas that Carl Barat et al were calling it a day - a consensus reached because of comments to that effect by Barat - it now seems that the Libertines may well continue without Doherty. US trade mag Billboard reports that the rest of the band are currently "taking time away from the band for a few months" with plans to reconvene for the summer festival circuit where they "hope to play new material intended for a new album, due out in late 2005 or early 2006 via Rough Trade".
The paper has spoken to drummer Gary Powell who said: "There is plenty of stuff happening - it's just the matter of formatting it into how we want it to be portrayed. And is the idiom of performance going to be the same as it was before? There is so much to figure out. Just go out and do it, that's kind of been our motto: have instruments, will play. But now that we have time to attempt to be a little bit professional, we're going to try and do it. I think we've reached that kind of status quo of professionalism."
On the continued tabloid coverage of Doherty's antics Powell said:
"We kind of ignore what's going on. At the end of it, it's really just Pete's problem and not really ours."
As for Pete returning to the Libertines, he continued: "I really haven't thought about it, to be honest. We've done two summers of tours without [Doherty]. And, I might add, the performances were kind of OK. But it's still [up to] Pete as well, and that's where that 'but' kind of fits in for me."